A Private Yacht Proposal in St. Thomas

Meeting Stephanie: Stop looking and you will find her. Desperate or carefree people who are single always hear this coming from people who are in a relationship. The first thought of a single person is yeah right, that will work, I will do nothing to get something. At least thats how I thought about the theory until it happened to me.

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A friend asked me to go out on a Thursday night and I was very unenthusiastic about the idea. I begrudgingly caved in and went to a club of all places. Once inside I scanned the typical suspects and immediately went to the bar thinking a beer would magically make the club’s patrons turn into playboy models that could also make a 28 on their ACT.

As I was wondering aimlessly I noticed a coworker, Heather, and stopped to talk. My wingman knew her as well and we said our cordial responses. After I said hello to her, for some strange reason, my eyes drifted away to the right upon a beauty that took my breathe away from me. I slightly tilted my head towards my friend Heather, without taking my eyes off of this new beautiful creature. I said with a tone that might accuse someone of hiding a valuable treasure “hmm, who is this?”, stressing the “who”. Heather responded with a joyful response “Oh, this is Stephanie”.

Stephanie was wearing a dress with high heels but you would have never noticed exactly what she was wearing nor have remembered. She was stunning, tall, and slender. She looked at me with the warmest and most sincere eyes I have ever seen. Ill never forget that moment.

Life is built of moments and opportunities. This was a moment I had to take advantage of, an opportunity to find out if this stunning creature would have any interest in myself. I immediately shifted my boredom to intense focus. In the “single” world that would be called putting my game face on. As much I as I was focused on the conversation and asking the right questions I cannot remember a thing of what we discussed. I was to nervously focused on not messing up and keeping her interested in me. You have to realize something, this “perfect moment” could be lost forever with one stupid response. Say the wrong thing and its over. I do remember one thing. Her most absurd response to my drink request, a “Crown Red Bull” for a cocktail is what she said. If that doesn’t make you cringe, I don’t know what will.

Apparently I was doing an “ok” job because I lasted longer than 5 minutes. We continued our conversation to the dance floor and had a great time dancing to a few hits we both liked, including JayZ “New York” song. The way the night started was far from how it was ending. I was ecstatic. As my smile grew, as my heart rate increased, as my thoughts ran rampant she was gone in a blink of an eye. She was gone! She left the club. I was frantic. I was done. How could I be so stupid and not obtain the most important thing, the Holy Grail, the most elusive thing to all male species. The dreaded phone number!!!

My wingman noticed my dreadful state of mind and calmed me down. She worked me up so much that the most important male mechanism stopped working; my logical part of my brain. I was so distraught that I had lost something that was so beautiful and unattainable it felt like I could never find it again. He simple reminded me in a calm voice ” dude, did you forget, Heather is friends with her”? I responded with such a relief “oh yeah,” with a smile on my face..

The next time I saw her was a few days later at the lake but it felt like a lifetime……….

Meeting Ben: When Ben and I met, I was not quite ready to settle down. I was 23 he was 30 I thought there’s no way this is going anywhere! About two months later I decided to give him a fair chance. Ben surprised one day with tickets to the OSU vs A&M game; It was a Thursday night game. I was so excited. We arrived at the game, settled into our seats, then went to my favorite concession stand. My family’s church always works a concession stand at home games and I knew my Dad would be down there. So much to Ben’s surprise, he met my dad that night at the OSU game! Only four months later he was meeting my whole family, and six months later we were on his family vacation in Atlantis! Needless to say this was going somewhere. We continued to spend time together, met each other’s friends and family, traveled, and enjoyed many college football games together; my favorite game Dec 4, 2011 OSU vs OU at Boone Pickens Field, it was an early birthday present!

The Proposal: After a few years, lots of great times together, I was beginning to wonder if he wanted to marry me? In February of 2013 Ben was very persistent, a strong trait of Benjamin Gibbs, about taking a trip over my spring break in March. So we decided to go to St. Thomas! I was excited and stressed. I had so much to get done with school before we left! On the plane ride there I was finishing my last physics assignment! Once we landed on the island we took a very bumpy and fast cab to our beautiful hotel! We arrived early so our rooms weren’t ready so we wondered around the resort, found a pool bar, and watched March Madness! I finally felt like I was on vacation; I could relax! Until Ben said, “by the way, we have plans tonight at 5:00 pm. Our room won’t be ready til 4, can you be ready in thirty minutes?” Thirty minutes?!! Theres no way! Everything will be wrinkled, I need to shower from a 6 hour plane ride, hair, make up, etc! I asked “what are we doing tonight?” He replied, “One of those dinner cruises, I thought it looked fun!” I said, “Fun! How many people will be there?” He replied “Probably 10-15.” So I thought, theres no way all of those people will be on time, I can at least be 10 minutes lat! After rushing around I was ready, and we were off!

We got to the docks, our boat wasn’t ready yet. So we went to an Irish Pub right by the docks and had a drink until the boat was ready. Then we walked down the docks to the boat. Much to my surprise it was a private sunset dinner cruise on a Yacht!! I was ecstatic! It was beautiful!! Ben always has surprises for me on vacations, and I was so surprised. The boat ride was beautiful, the food was great, the champagne was sparkly, and my company was perfect! Everything seemed perfect! We cruised into a small cove called Christmas Cove and tied up. Ben and I were walking around the boat checking it out and enjoying the scenery. He lured me to the back of the boat to look at the fish. So I go back there and he said “Hand your camera to Anna so she can take our picture at sunset.” So I did. As we were looking at the fish and the sunset I popped off a comment along the line of “Wow I could stay here forever, lets just get a house and stay!” He replied, “Speaking of forever…” and I look over and he was down on one knee!!!!

I was overwhelmed with emotions! I could not believe he surprised me! I honestly can’t recall everything he said while he was on his knee. I was so shocked and crying like a baby that all I could think of was say YES! I look over and the captain of the boat was filming and the co captain was taking pictures. Now everything was perfect!